Saint Dulce of the Poor

Born Maria Rita de Souza Brito Lopes Pontes in Salvador, Brazil, in 1914, she entered religious life as a Sister of the Immaculate Conception, taking the name Dulce. From the 1930s onward, she began gathering the sick and destitute of Salvador who had nowhere else to go, initially housing them wherever she could — including, according to widely told accounts, in a henhouse when no other space was available. Her small, informal efforts grew over decades into a major charitable and hospital network now known as the Santo Antônio Works Foundation, serving hundreds of thousands of the poorest patients in Bahia. She became known nationally as "the Good Angel of Bahia" and "Mother of the Poor," and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. She died in 1992 and was canonized in 2019, becoming the first Brazilian-born saint.